Night School

by Child, Lee

Wiley’s phone rang, and he took the call in his kitchen. He knew immediately from the background noise who it was. The friendly barman, made friendlier still by liberal applications of folding money, in amounts somewhere between tips and bribes. Plus an extra wad for just-in-case emergencies. Or warnings. Or whatever else in the opinion of the guy who was taking the cash would be appreciated by the guy who was giving the cash. The same the world over. All unsaid and unspoken but well understood.

  The guy said, “Wolfgang Schlupp is going to sell you out to Dremmler.”

  Wiley said, “For how much?”

  “A percentage. Dremmler says you’re on your way to find Nazi gold.”

  “I was on my way to the bathroom.”

  “You’ve got until Schlupp gets home.”

  —

  The phone rang again in the consulate room, and Landry picked it up, and gave it to Neagley, who gave it to Reacher. It was Griezman. He said, “It turns out our traffic division needs extreme detail for a remote operation like Hanover will be. We’ll all save time if you give them the specifications direct. Better accuracy, too. I’ve alerted their deputy chief. He’s expecting your call. I’ll give you his number. His name is Muller.”

  “OK,” Reacher said. “Anything else?”

  “Nothing. Good luck.”

  “Thank you.”

  Reacher hung up and redialed.

  —

  The phone rang on Muller’s desk. He closed the door and sat down and picked up. An American voice said, “Is that Deputy Chief Muller?”

  Muller said, “Yes.”

  “My name is Reacher. I believe Chief of Detectives Griezman told you I would call.”

  Muller moved a file and found a pad of message forms. He picked up a pencil. He noted the date, the time, and the caller. He said, “Apparently you wish autobahn traffic to be monitored south of Hanover.”

  “You have the plate number. I need to know if it’s heading from here to the Frankfurt area.”

  “What exactly do you envisage from us?”

  “Cars on the shoulders. Or on the bridges. Four pairs of eyes. Like a regular speed trap, but with binoculars, not radar guns.”

  “We have no experience of such things, Mr. Reacher. There are no speed limits on the autobahns.”

  “But you get the gist.”

  “I have seen American television.”

  Muller wrote gist on the message pad.

  Reacher said, “Communication needs to be instant. I need time to arrange things at the other end.”

  Muller said, “Do you know where he’s going?”

  “Not exactly. Not yet.”

  “Tell me when you work it out. I could allocate resources.”

  “Thank you, I will.”

  Muller hung up. He tore the top sheet off the message pad. He tore it in half, and in quarters, and eighths, and sixteenths, like confetti, which he dropped in his trash can. Reacher could claim the conversation had taken place, but Muller could claim it had ended with a last-gasp never-mind withdrawal, and hence cancellation of all just-agreed points. Couldn’t be proven either way. A classic he-said-she-said, which the cops always won.

  He dialed Dremmler.

  He said, “Believe it or not, I just had Reacher on the phone. A problem Griezman dumped in my lap. Reacher thinks Wiley is heading to Frankfurt. He promised to tell me the exact destination, just as soon as he has it.”

  “Excellent.”

  “Did you get his new name?”

  “It’s on its way very soon.”

  —

  Wolfgang Schlupp left the bar as soon as he was good and ready, and he took two alleys and a bus, which let him out one alley and two left turns from home, which was a top-floor apartment in a pre-war townhouse. No elevator, given the age of the place. But plenty of equity. There had long been a rumor the whole townhouse row had been incorrectly repaired after the wartime bombing. But then an engineer’s report had proved exactly the opposite. Prices had doubled overnight. Schlupp had gotten in early. He had overheard a conversation in the bar, back to back with two city officials, swapping gossip.

  He walked up the stairs, through the second-floor lobby, through the third, and onward.

  —

  Wiley heard him coming. He was leaning on the wall, in the shadow between a fire cabinet and a hot-water riser. He had a gun in his hand. His Beretta M9, army kind-of surplus, bought from two chuckleheads stealing from a supply company, in the very same bar where the talkative Mr. Schlupp plied his not-so-secret-after-all trade.

  Schlupp stepped up from the top stair, and hunched left, and unlocked his door. Wiley came out of the shadow and shoved him through it, the gun in his back, kicking the door shut with his heel, pushing him on down the hallway, to a spacious living room, all urban and gray and bare brick, where Schlupp tripped and fell on a black leather sofa, and lay there helpless.

  Wiley stood above him and aimed the gun at his face.

  He said, “I heard you’re going to sell me out, Wolfgang.”

  “Not true,” Schlupp said. “I would never do that. What kind of business would I have?”

  “You told Dremmler you would.”

  “I was going to make up a name and send him on a wild goose chase.”

  “You got records here?”

  “All in code.”

  “Why not make up a name in the bar? Why wait to get back to the records?”

  “Was it Dremmler who told you?”

  “Doesn’t matter who. You were going to sell me out. You were going to look me up in the records. Dremmler told you to call him at once, because it was very important to the cause.”

  “No way, man. That’s bullshit. How could I? Who would trust me again?”

  “Why didn’t you make up a name in the bar?”

  Schlupp didn’t answer.

  Wiley said, “Show me the records.”

  Schlupp struggled to his feet and they went down the hallway the same way they came up, but slower, the gun in Schlupp’s back all the way, to a small bedroom in use as an office.

  Schlupp pointed to a high shelf.

  He said, “The red file folder.”

  Which was like a three-ring binder, except it had four. Pre-punched pages had lines of handwritten code, nonsense non-words in separate columns, maybe old name, new name, passport, license, national ID.

  Wiley said, “Which one am I?”

  “I wasn’t going to sell you out.”

  “Why didn’t you make up a name in the bar?”

  “Dremmler’s full of it, man. Right now he thinks you’re deep in the country in a panel van, looking for Nazi gold. But evidently you’re not. So he’s wrong about that, which means he could be wrong about everything. That’s logical, right? Why even listen to him?”

  “I didn’t,” Wiley said. “I listened to the barman. Dremmler asked and you answered. You were going to sell me out. If you didn’t want to, you would have given up a phony name right there and then. Or OK, maybe you froze, but a minute later you would have figured it out and said, yes now I remember, he calls himself Schmidt. Or some such. But you didn’t.”

  “He scares me, man. He can make trouble. OK, I was going to tell him. But I changed my mind.”

  “When you saw me?”

  “No, before.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “What kind of business would I have?”

  “Dremmler told you he’d cover the risk.”

  “I swear, man. You’re wrong. I changed my mind. I would never do it.”

  In for a penny, in for a pound.

  All or nothing.

  Wiley said, “Better safe than sorry, pal.”

  He swapped hands on the gun, fast and smooth and fluid, and he cracked Schlupp hard on the temple, backhand, with the heel of the butt. He didn’t want to shoot him. Not there. Too noisy. He hit him again, forehand, on the other temple, and the guy’s head bounced around like a rag doll. When it came to rest Wiley hit him again, a vicious downward chop
, right on the top of his skull, like an ax or a hammer. Schlupp fell to his knees. Wiley hit him again. Schlupp pitched forward and fell on his face. Wiley leaned down and hit him again, and again, and again, and again, and again.

  Bone cracked and blood oozed and spattered.

  Wiley stopped and took a breath.

  He checked Schlupp’s neck for a pulse.

  Nothing.

  He gave it a whole minute, just to be sure. Still nothing. So he wiped his gun on Schlupp’s shirt, and he picked up the red file folder, and he left.

  Chapter 30

  Reacher sat quietly in the corner of the consulate room, waiting for the phone to ring, wondering who would call first, either New Orleans or Deputy Chief Muller in the traffic division. It was like waiting for the winner of a slow-motion race. He pictured dawn breaking over the delta, languorously, and local FBI agents waking up and eating breakfast, slowly, and then heading out. At which point the process might get a little faster. Presumably their appointment with Wiley’s mother would be their first of the day. Given the pressure from Waterman and Landry. Possibly as early as eight o’clock in the morning, given that a welfare recipient would want to stay cool with the government. Against that semi-leisurely Louisiana timeline ran Wiley’s panel van, five thousand miles away in Germany, cruising at maybe sixty miles an hour, closing in on Hanover, and bypassing it, and leaving it behind, and rolling on south toward the unmarked cars. Who would get there first?

  The phone rang.

  Neither New Orleans nor Deputy Chief Muller.

  It was Griezman.

  Who said, “I have a serious problem.”

  Reacher said, “What kind?”

  “We have a homicide in the old part of town. A small man with his head bashed in. It’s a very fresh scene. A neighbor heard a noise. I feel obliged to send all my men there, at least for today. I really have no alternative. So I’m very sorry, my friend, but I am forced to suspend our temporary assistance.”

  “And you’re wondering how I’m going to feel about that.”

  Griezman paused a beat.

  “No,” he said. “I took you at your word.”

  Reacher said, “Good luck with the homicide.”

  “Thank you.”

  Reacher killed the call. Sinclair looked a question, and Reacher said, “We’re on our own now.”

  “Because you’re such a gentleman.”

  “We have time.”

  “The messenger could be in Zurich by now.”

  “Doesn’t matter. It’s this part that matters. Something physical in a panel van. Which can’t move like money. Not secretly in the blink of an eye. It’s slow and ponderous and noisy and visible, because it’s real.”

  “Except Muller hasn’t seen it.”

  “Yet.”

  “How long will you give it?”

  “Two hours, maybe.”

  “Then what?”

  “I’ll conclude Wiley wasn’t headed for Frankfurt.”

  The phone rang again.

  This time it was the New Orleans FBI, patched through direct from their car outside the one-room shack where Wiley’s mother lived. Two agents, a man and a woman. Immediate reports, as requested. They had led off their interview with the scripted questions, about the name Arnold, and the drafted rancher, and the Davy Crockett fan. Turned out they were all the same guy. His full name was Arnold Peter Mason. Born and grew up in Amarillo, Texas. As a kid he worked on a ranch, then he did twenty years in the U.S. Army, and then he lived with Wiley’s mother in Sugar Land, Texas, for a six-year spell, from when young Horace Wiley was about ten years old, until he was about sixteen. And yes, young Horace had called Arnold his uncle. He was an older man than Wiley’s mother had been accustomed to, and he was a still, silent man with secrets, but at first he had been a good provider. More details would follow.

  Landry, Vanderbilt, and Neagley all plugged the name into their respective systems. Arnold Peter Mason. Landry got nothing of immediate top-line interest. Neither did Vanderbilt. Neagley got a twenty-year NCO in the airborne infantry. No gold stars, no red flags. Plenty of time in Germany, way back when anything could happen.

  Still alive, according to the Social Security mainframe. Sixty-five years old. Still working, according to the Internal Revenue Service. A modest income, declining year on year. Maybe odd jobs or laboring, slowing up ahead of retirement.

  The owner of a passport, according to the State Department.

  No address within the United States.

  The IRS said his tax returns had been filed from overseas.

  CIA flagged him as living in Germany.

  The Berlin embassy showed him registered as a retired-military U.S. citizen resident in a small village near Bremen. An hour away from Hamburg.

  Reacher said, “Is this a co-production? Is this the two of them together?”

  Neagley said, “Maybe that’s where the first truck is hidden. At Uncle Arnold’s place, not Frankfurt.”

  “Then why bring a second truck now?”

  “Maybe Uncle Arnold let the tires go flat.”

  “Or maybe they’re going to split the load. If it’s a co-production. Maybe the hundred million is for Wiley’s half only.”

  “Wait,” White said. “Look at this. Uncle Arnold has been in Germany nearly twenty years. Since Wiley was sixteen. That’s a hell of a long game.”

  “And look at this,” Vanderbilt said.

  Also listed along with Mason on the embassy’s register were two non-citizen dependents.

  Landry said, “A buck gets ten that’s a wife and a kid.”

  Then the phone rang again. The New Orleans FBI, direct from their car, with an important bullet-point update. After six years of relative happiness Mrs. Wiley had kicked Arnold Mason out of her house because she accidentally discovered he had a wife in Germany. And a son. The boy was handicapped. Mrs. Wiley didn’t have much, but she had her standards.

  —

  Wiley was a practical man, so he cleaned his gun in the dishwasher. Why not? The M9 was built to military specifications. It was designed to withstand continuous salt water immersion. He used the full pots-and-pans cycle, with the full drying phase. Then he would oil the parts and put the gun back together again, pristine and good as new.

  He had balled up his spattered clothes with the red file folder and put them in the kitchen trash. A considered decision. First instinct was to take them out and dump them in a can on the street. Not too close, but not too far, either. No one liked to walk a long distance with a suspicious object in his hand. And then hypothetically there might be a full-court press, and hypothetically the trash cans on the street might get searched, so why let them draw a circle on the map and figure out where you live? Better to leave it right there. The landlord would find it in a month. By which point it wouldn’t matter.

  Wiley picked up the phone and dialed his travel agent. The same girl who had booked his trip to Zurich. She spoke good English. She knew he liked a window seat. She had all the details from his shiny new passport.

  —

  Muller didn’t call. No one was surprised. The working hypothesis had changed from Frankfurt to Bremen. To Uncle Arnold’s place. Bishop brought a CIA map and spread it on a table. The embassy showed the top line of the address as Gelb Bauernhof. A name, not a street number. Therefore possibly rural. Possibly a farm. Reacher pictured barns and garages and outbuildings, and piles of worn-out tires.

  Hiding places.

  He said, “We need a car.”

  Bishop said, “You need a plan.”

  The telex machine started up.

  “Uncle Arnold’s service record,” Neagley said.

  Reacher said, “The plan is Sergeant Neagley and I will conduct surveillance and gather intelligence.”

  “Negative,” Bishop said. “CIA and the NSC must be represented. Dr. Sinclair and I will come with you. And the rules of engagement are no engagement at all. Strictly observation only. That’s a dealbreaker. Legally, this is a co
mplex situation.”

  “Bring a weapon,” Reacher said. “Wiley has one. And if it’s a farm, they’ll have a shotgun.”

  “I said observation only.”

  “Bring one anyway.”

  White said, “You have to get the Iranian out. You’re saying one hour from now there could be a shooting war. At that exact moment their deal is dead and the Iranian won’t survive it. If you leave him there, you’ll kill him.”

  Bishop said nothing.

  The phone rang.

  Griezman.

  Who said, “Do you believe in coincidence?”

  Reacher said, “Sometimes.”

  “Our homicide victim was a regular patron of Helmut Klopp’s bar. He did his business there. Everyone’s lying, of course, but I think he was the one who sold the ID.”

  “Why?”

  “Whispers, from other people with other things to hide.”

  “Do you have a suspect?”

  “Someone preventing or avenging betrayal.”

  “Was someone just betrayed?”

  “No.”

  “Preventing, then.”

  “There are no written records in the victim’s apartment. There is however a space in an otherwise neat shelf of file folders.”

  “Mission accomplished,” Reacher said.

  Then he said, “Which could be ironic.”

  Griezman said, “How?”

  “It’s a question of timing. You buy ID and decide to kill the supplier and remove his records to prevent future betrayal. But when do you do it? That’s the question. Would a new client take that risk immediately after delivery? Or an old client at a time of maximum pressure, with his plan finally in motion, and maybe already going a little ragged at the edges?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Neither do I. I guess it’s about fifty-fifty.”

  “You think it’s Wiley.”

  “No, I don’t. There could be any number of old clients under stress. And I think Wiley was driving a van at the time. But you’re a responsible copper. You’ll put him on your list. You’ll have to. Which means your temporary assistance just started up again.”

  “I thought you gave up on that.”

  “On what?”

  “Driving the van. Muller told me you canceled your request.”

  “When?”